The Black Curse did not kill quickly. It was a meticulous artist of agony, painting its masterpiece of despair across Kael’s body and soul. His screams became wet, gurgling things as the black veins of the broken oath constricted his lungs. He thrashed on the broken stones of the altar, a puppet whose strings were being systematically severed by a vengeful god.
I watched him, my heart a frozen stone in my chest. The part of me that had once loved him, that had once ached at his rejection, felt nothing. It was like watching a venomous snake devour itself. This was not my vengeance; it was the inevitable consequence of his own sacrilege. The universe itself was correcting his vile imbalance.
But his punishment was not mine to give. His fate had been sealed by magic older than our pack. My
